BayWa r.e. is aiming to leverage its international presence and scale to improve the standard of O&M services for UK customers following its acquisition of Green Hedge Operational Services.

Earlier this month BayWa r.e. announced it was to acquire Green Hedge’s O&M arm, which is now being rebranded as BayWa r.e. Operation Services Limited. BayWa r.e.’s Operation Services arm now has a UK portfolio of 615MW across onshore wind and solar PV, with more expected to be added on in the coming months. Tobias Bittkau, global head of Operation Services at BayWa r.e., explained that the acquisition fits into BayWa r.e.’s strategy of building strong local organisations that seamlessly and efficiently leverage BayWa r.e.’s global network and centralised resources.

The UK operation services organisation across solar PV and wind will be headed by Mark Evans, MD at BayWa r.e. UK, together with Tess Sundelin, ex-MD of Green Hedge Group, who now joins BayWa r.e. in connection with the acquisition of Green Hedge Operational Services.

Evans said that the acquisition was an “exciting next step” for the BayWa r.e’s continued UK growth. “With a greater in-house coverage of on-site operations and the knowledge and security we can offer through the global BayWa r.e. team, we are now an even stronger partner for asset owners looking to place their operations in safe hands.”

“We have already been working hard over the last year to bring the rigor of our UK wind health and safety processes and procedures to the solar industry and we are finding that the Green Hedge way of working fits in superbly with this. Combined, we will be offering a greater range of services to our customers, increasing both the efficiency of their projects and our operations, in a safe and sustainable manner,” Evans added.

Speaking to Solar Power Portal, Sundelin said that the new integrated entity’s most immediate priority was to “deliver excellent service quality to our combined existing client base and ensure they reap the full benefits of the combination of BayWa r.e.’s and Green Hedge Operational Services’s capabilities”, while also proactively planning for further growth in the UK market.